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Comment by johnea | Hacker News Reader

Not a bad idea, but why does this only apply to games?

I prime example of other software this would have benefited is AutoCAD.

People who refused the conversion to a subscription, and maintained their "lifetime" licenses, where shut down after a couple of years.

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Because going up against all types of big software publishers at once would invite MUCH more lobbying which would make any progress likely impossible. Better to start in one area, gaming in this case, to get a precedent out there, which then makes the fight against general software publishers easier.

Agreed! Far too many companies selling software as lifetime license and their renegade on that deal. A refund should be allowed. Or simply make the software offline without drm

To be fair, B2B sales have typically existed in a different world, even for physical goods. Take the Sale of Goods Act in the UK, offering consumer protections. A business simply can’t take advantage of many of its protections as it’s aimed specifically at B2C sales.

It would be fair in general to disallow charging a one-time fee for something that's shut down soon later. I don't expect perpetual support, but there should be some target based on the price that any well-intended software maker will exceed.

Also if you advertise "lifetime license," that should mean lifetime.

I agree, and the user's of AutoCAD that I know, weren't; asking for any "support", they just wanted the software to keep working...

It only applies to games because the people behind it (Ross Scot) chose to limit their efforts that way. If you want to campaign for an even larger scope feel free to put in the effort.

How were they shut down? Like as in the old software refuses to start or they cant renew maintenance / no security updates?

Adobe turned the license servers off that the installers used to verify your CS6 installer key. No check pass, no install. Of course, you can just use an LLM to build a patch, or pirate a copy, but it's the principle I suppose.

CS6 verifies keys locally if it can't reach adobe's servers. Are they specifically blocking that?

Blocking CS6 from accessing the internet in your firewall and using a key somoene posted online was a common practice back in the day.

I thought they just wanted to thwart DRM; people still pirate AutoCAD 2018.

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